![]() This tells us that by changing the composition of the hips, more force was pushed onto the outer side of the knee, forcing an inwards movement. The same was found to happen with older people having hip replacements. Studies have found that children who have had corrective surgery for shallow angled hips have ended up with knock knees afterwards. There is a direct link between hip function and knock knees. This is what we see in clinic and in our own bodies. The good thing is we know with some tailored awareness and movement practice we can re-train the joints to work together with the rest of the body. As shown by those research studies mentioned below, if there’s something not comfortable with the hip then we need to alter where our force goes through, and the inside of the knee seems to be a common scenario to open up. If someone has, for example, hurt their hip or sprained an ankle especially when they were younger (see our blog on “ Why your posture is not your fault” by Dr Katie Willy), this can mechanically change the orientation of the knee. The knee closes on the outer side and forces the joint open on the inner side, being pushed closer towards the other knee.īut the knock knees look like the problem, so why are they not? The knee is the one that buckles to accommodate the load. Instead of being evenly spread through all the joints of the lower body, we might be avoiding putting pressure through an old hip injury or surgery (even childhood hernia operations), or an uncomfortable or previously injured ankle. The knee is forced into that inward position because something further up or down (possibly the hip or ankle) has displaced the normal knee mechanics causing them to bend inwards. When you notice someone’s knock-knees, we think “…geez they look a bit awkward…”, but even though they look awkward the cause is not often the knees themselves. This then straightens out and keeps going past neutral into knocked knees, peaking at 4 years of age and this should all come back to a normal position again by the time we get to 7. Our legs go through a natural developmental sequence when we are young, we develop bowlegs from 20-22 months of age. ![]() ![]() This podcast with We Move & our educator Gary Ward, can provide you some insight What is the natural growth pattern of the legs? Knock knees are usually found to be a knock-on effect in our clinic, and something we re-train with movement therapy known as Anatomy in Motion. If you lack movement in one area, there will be a knock-on effect in another area. ![]() The reason we disagree is due to our deep understanding of human biomechanics and the movement relationship as a chain in the whole body. After all that’s what nearly every website says, but we disagree. Many cases of knock knees are put down to genetics and left as such with no hope from the person apart from surgery. Do your knees come too close when you walk? Maybe they even touch? They shouldn’t! Genu Valgum is the technical name for knock knees with the opposite being bow legs or Genu Varum. ![]()
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